Forum Discussion
MS Project (Desktop) - Total % Complete of all Total Number of Active Tasks under a Summary Task
I am looking for what I believe is a complex formula. What I am looking to achieve is the following (Example), this would be a new Custom Field: I have a Summary Task with say 10 active sub t...
- To those who may be following this thread:
The "answer" to the calculation question is addressed in my response to this same question on the Microsoft Answers forum at:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/why-does-ms-project-not-calculate-upon-opening/8508dd45-b74d-4319-8301-7167d2858079
John
No, it's not a complex formula. If done using extra fields with a formula (e.g. customize Task Number1 field), the formula will apply to all tasks, not just the summary line but even that could be set up to only show at summary level. I say "if done using extra fields" because an alternate approach would be to do this using VBA.
You talk about Active Tasks and cases where additional tasks are inserted due to various things. Are those new tasks not part of the "active task" count? If so, what delineates the difference between Active Tasks and new tasks (e.g. new tasks don't have a baseline set?)?
How exactly do you intend to "add" this new data parameter to your baseline cost? And you mention a report in Excel. How did you plan to get that?
John
John-project → Thank you so much for your response, it's much appreciated!
Yes, so a few sub tasks are set and baselined as the plan of action and costs attached to each, but during the course of a project, things never go to plan within the construction industry and extensive delays occur, so what we do is insert these delay tasks before the task that was meant to take place begins (but no baseline is set for these delays), this shows the effects of the delay further on in our project. Non the less, these delays would need to come to an end before the next task takes place. The problem I have seen is that the first task (10 sub tasks in total) is set to say 2 days, then we have a delay of say 30 days, if I attached and Actual Start and Actual Finish to both the first task and the delay task, I have seen the summary task show me I'm 88% complete which is incorrect (% Complete Field), this is why I am looking to achieve this custom field which I can later use in my Visual Reports in Excel.
I understand you can add Custom Fields to your Visual Reports via 'Edit Template', and after some playing around, I figured out how to find these items (As they never showed up in the Pivot Table Field list). Firstly, I would drill down on the Pivot Table to a certain level, then by right clicking the task (In the example below, Task 4) → hover over 'Show Properties in Report' → You can then see these Custom Fields and other useful fields to display. Unfortunately I haven't found a BI Tool for custom Excel Reports using MS Project Desktop, this would be ideal.
